


Videmur

by nahnahnahnah



Category: Codex Alera - Jim Butcher
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 19:31:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17049254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nahnahnahnah/pseuds/nahnahnahnah
Summary: In the aftermath of the final battle against the Vord, the new First Lord and the Marat Ambassador have a request for High Lady Placida.Aria is mildly frustrated but mostly amused at once more having her hand forced by a shepard boy.





	Videmur

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ravelqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravelqueen/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I hope you enjoy your gift!

Aria was left with the healers after Isana determined they would not be leaving and the Windwolves would be better employed out fighting rather than guarding the wounded. She would have ground her teeth had she the energy for it; she hated the forced inactivity when the Realm itself was at such risk, and when she could hear the sounds of battle around her.

Isana herself had stabilized Sandos, found bleeding out at the bottom of the ramp, but he still needed the attentions of a healer. He was unconscious at the moment, and Aria wanted so badly to help him, to assure herself he would live. She could do nothing, but she could not bring herself to leave his side regardless.

She gritted her teeth at another scream from one of the wounded and dying around them. Crows take it, she could imagine nothing worse than this forced inactivity when it was so clear her skills were needed.

It was almost a relief Raucus was still unconscious as well; he would feel it even more strongly than she did, and things were hard enough without having to hear his complaints.

Movement caught her eye and she looked up to see Isana returning, following the water witch Odiana.

“Is there news?” Aria asked, hating herself for asking even as the words left her mouth. There would be no news worth the reporting. Not when she could still hear the battle raging outside for herself.

“Not yet,” Isana replied. She didn’t even pause to catch Aria’s eye, but only hurried after Odiana. “Medico?” she called out. “Medico, we need the sons of Antillus.”

“They’re both unconscious yet, my lady,” responded one of the young men rushing about tending to the wounded.

“I know. Odiana is going to wake them up.”

An added benefit to Raucus’s continued unconsciousness, Aria found herself thinking. She would spare him knowing such a thing was being done to his sons.

Isana wouldn’t be letting it happen unless things were desperate.

She was about to turn her full attention back to Sandos—she could at least watch to ensure he didn’t slip away unnoticed—when a familiar voice caught her ear.

“Please, you can’t,” a woman was begging. “It could ruin him. It could destroy his mind.”

Aria’s head jerked around without a thought. Dorotea? _Here_?

Isana was pulling her aside and speaking to her in a low but urgent voice. Aria could make out the tone but not the words, and she was far too interested in getting a clearer look at the woman’s face than eavesdropping.

It _was_ Dorotea. Bloody _crows_.

Aria’s eyes met the Countess Amara’s, where the young woman had propped herself against the wall to rest. She looked just as befuddled.

The two of them watched the former High Lady—she was former, wasn’t she? She couldn’t remember suddenly if Raucus had actually divorced her, not when they all had thought she was dead—and they watched as Isana won her around and she allowed access to the tubs she was standing near.

Three tubs. She had expressed concern for one person. It must be her son. Aria had known Max long enough and well enough to know she wouldn’t express such a feeling for him. But Isana had been looking for him as well, so he must be in one of the other tubs. But why was Dorotea trusted to treat him in the first place? Surely even in the chaos of such a battle they wouldn’t want to risk such an asset by leaving him to the whims of his stepmother.

And then there was the third tub.

Aria watched as Odiana went to two of the tubs while Dorotea attended to the third. The witch shuddered as she dipped her hands into the water up to her elbows. It was several minutes at each tub with Isana watching over, her own hands dipping into the water as well, but soon Max was being helped up and Crassus was being pulled out of his own tub as they scrambled to find someone to carry him.

And then the two of them turned to the last tub, but Dorotea appeared to have finished already. A young woman was pulling herself upright, and a sudden terror and fury seized Aria. She knew that face. That face would be haunting her nightmares for years to come.

“It’s the Marat ambassador,” Amara said suddenly, catching her attention, and Aria realized she had half-risen.

“What?” she said stupidly, blinking. She turned back to the young woman and looked closer. Yes, she had none of the inhumanity of the Vord Queen, no matter how closely she resembled that abomination. Isana was greeting her with affection, and there was far too much emotion on her face. Anger, mostly, and fear, but she was so much more expressive than the Queen had been that Aria felt foolish for her initial reaction.

Then Amara’s words really sank in.

“ _That’s_ the Marat Ambassador?” she asked. “ _Doroga’s_ daughter?”

“And Hashat’s niece,” Amara said with the ghost of a smile. It wasn’t enough to lighten her face, but likely nothing would be until this was all over.

“She’s so much…smaller than I would have thought,” Aria said, watching more absentmindedly as the Marat girl quickly armed herself and stalked to the entrance. She passed within feet of them but took no notice.

“She’ll be after Octavian,” Amara said softly. There was something in her tone Aria couldn’t quite place. A longing?

“Amara?” she said, “Are you all right?”

“Oh,” Amara said, “Yes. Yes, I only…I wonder how the defenses are holding. At Garrison.”

“They’re probably holding up better than we are,” Aria said, aiming for lighthearted but missing the mark because of the truth in her statement. “Bernard will be fine. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more dutiful man. He wouldn’t abandon his post for something so pedestrian as death.”

“Of course,” Amara said, and her smile conveyed more gratefulness than assuaged spirits, but the exchange left Aria wondering why, exactly, the Marat girl going after the Princeps left Amara thinking of her husband.

~*~

A full day later, Aria sat next to her husband’s bed in Garrison and resisted the urge to reach out again with her watercrafting to check on his well-being. All that could be done for him had been done; it was exhaustion now, from the healing and from the battle beforehand that kept him unconscious.

A soft knock from the door made her whip her head around. A tall, handsome, familiar young man stood there.

“My lord Octavian,” she said, rising.

“High Lady Placida,” he said. “May I come in?”

She curtsied as she murmured her assent.

“I am told High Lord Placida will make a full recovery,” he said after waving her back to her seat and taking up a position at the foot of the bed.

“Yes,” she said, “he’s always been strong. But I do not think you came simply to exchange pleasantries, my lord.”

He gave her a faint smile. “I always have time for the proper courtesies to friends of my mother,” he said. “But yes, I have some ulterior motives in coming. First and foremost I wanted to thank you in person for all that you and your husband have done for the Realm, and for my family.”

“It was our duty,” Aria replied, lifting her chin to meet his eyes.

“How is Lord Placida?” asked Octavian. His gaze strayed to her husband’s unmoving figure.

“They say he will recover,” Aria replied, letting her own eyes gravitate back to him.

“That’s good to hear,” Octavian said softly. He sounded tired.

Aria looked back to him. “Have you gotten any rest since the battle, my lord?”

“He has not,” a new voice said crisply from the door. Aria turned to the door, noting as she did the smile that spread across Octavian’s face. It was an honest smile. Far more honest than any smile she had seen from his grandfather in years.

“Kitai,” Octavian said, reaching out a hand. The young Marat woman met his fingers with her own briefly as she came to his side. “Kitai, I don’t think you’ve met High Lady Placidus Aria. My lady, this is Kitai, the Marat Ambassador and daughter to Headman Doroga.”

Aria found herself subject to two identical pairs of bright green eyes. She blinked, looking from Octavian to Kitai. “Your excellency,” Aria said, “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Kitai snorted. “Was Isana mistaken in telling me you were more straightforward than the rest of these—”

“Politicians?” Octavian cut in smoothly, just the hint of an amused smile at the corners of his mouth.

Aria found that she was smiling; had she not known Doroga, she might have missed the hint of calculation in Kitai’s eyes as she watched Aria’s response.

“Forgive me, I only wanted to pay you the proper respects,” Aria said. “And surely if half of what I’ve heard about you has been right, Octavian, you’ve gotten enough of a portrait of my character from Isana by now to know which of your schemes I’d be a willing ally in?”

Kitai laughed, a bright, delighted sound that lit up the sickroom. Octavian grinned a surprisingly mischievous smile that put Aria rather in mind of what he must’ve been like to raise. Poor Isana and Bernard.

“It was Kitai that wanted the impression,” Octavian protested, and she shot him a look of mock annoyance.

“No, Aleran, you will explain nothing if I leave it to you,” she said, and Aria couldn’t help but reach for Sandos’s hand as she saw the naked affection in their glances even as they teased each other.

“But I did wish to meet you,” Kitai said, turning to Aria again. “I have a request for you. We intend to be married.”

“Oh?” Aria said, perhaps somewhat faintly. She’d had a trying day; to be told their new First Lord would be marrying one of the northern barbarians…

“Yes,” Kitai said as Octavian’s face went blank. “You see the problem.”

“She will, of course, be First Lady,” Octavian added.

“Of course,” Aria parroted. Great furies. Well. They all knew there would be changes after all that had happened these last few months.

“I need to know how,” Kitai said bluntly. “Isana says to talk to you.”

“We know you have responsibilities in Placida,” Octavian said before she could reply, “so we’re only asking for your time while you wait for Lord Placida to recover. But it would mean a great deal to us both.”

Oh yes, she remembered this from the last time they had met. He was a _conniving_ one.

But Aria looked from Octavian to Kitai, met a pair of unwavering green gazes, and couldn’t help but smile. He was, at least, good at conniving. And it would be smart to make her way to the inner circle of this new court as soon as she could. She had the feeling it’d be much more entertaining to watch the more hidebound deal with the changes she _knew_ would be coming if she had that inside view.

“I am always happy,” she said as she stood to curtsy, “to do my duty to the Crown.”

**Author's Note:**

> I tried a few different POVs but Aria's was the one that fit the best for me; here's hoping you don't mind her as a character!


End file.
